I bought FF XIII the week is came out. Played for around 20 plus hours the first week. Got till Chapter 9, and got bored of the linearity and not being able to choose my party leader, change party members, and only being able to have 2 or 3 people in my party at once.
Last week i started playing again, got till chapter 12. The game opened up, i had the ability to change my party members at will, and the ability to change my paradigms as well. In other words, the game got FUN. Currently around 56 hours, i grinded in Grand Pulse, and also did some Monster Missions and i did the Chocobo Treasure as well. The story is finally ending, and i gotta say it really sucks. It is so predictable, that you could figure it out by reading the lines on the back of the book, "save themselves or save the world". The voice acting is capable, but i despise Vanille with a passion. The gameplay while as you guys mention is more about picking Auto-Battle over and over, the strategy in changing paradigms is nice, but overall battles last too long, but still fun. The characters i'm not too fond off, i think they're generic and too anime like. The graphics are the best this gen, but sadly the framerate is garbage. The music is excellent, probably the best OST of the year. I have so many complaints, but the battle system keeps me engaged, it's so addicting. That is the one thing that they excelled at.
Currently i would rate it 8/10, though i still need to finish Chapters 12 and 13.
